The Banc Sabadell Auditorium was packed on March 17 for the 34th Barcelona GSE Lecture, delivered by Professor Robert E. Lucas, Jr. (University of Chicago, Nobel Laureate in Economics). Professor Lucas spoke about the economic and demographic conditions that lead to industrial revolution.

"The human race enjoyed many centuries of population growth and artistic and scientific achievement long before the onset of the Industrial Revolution," he observed, "but sustained growth in the living standards of ordinary working people did not occur even in Europe prior to the 18th century. What took us so long? Why did the change happen at all?"

Evan Seyfried '16 was one of the current masters students who attended the lecture. He shared his thoughts on the event, the research presented, and meeting Professor Lucas in a blog post on the Barcelona GSE Voice, the School's student and alumni blog.

"When considering the Industrial Revolution, we can appreciate how natural it would be to dismiss the intangible, fuzzy concept of 'human capital' and only focus on material capital: factories, infrastructure, mines, et cetera," Mr. Seyfried reflects. "But if we view the Industrial Revolution with Lucas’s model in mind, we can at the very least see that Lucas’s statement from his 2015 paper—'human capital accumulation can account for all observed growth'—is quite plausible."